The present invention relates to telecommunications and, more particularly, to composition and transmission of messages between network endpoints.
It is generally known for a messaging application to programmatically insert a signature block into an electronic message being composed by a user. A typical signature block functions as the user's “signature,” in that it usually sets forth the user's name and other contact information such as address and phone number. Alternatively, an inserted signature block could take other forms, providing other designated information and/or media (e.g., graphics, photo, video, sound, etc.) A typical messaging application, such as Microsoft Outlook, for instance, can be configured such that the computer generating the email message automatically inserts a signature block into a message being composed by a user, upon initial creation of the message or upon receipt of user instruction (e.g., through selection of a designated menu or toolbar item).
The present inventors have appreciated that there are circumstances where a user may wish to include a custom signature block for their messages, but the transmission of the signature block itself is detrimental in one way or another, for example consumes computing resources needed for other applications, consumes battery power, consumes excessive bandwidth where the bandwidth is limited, causing other applications to slow down, or a transaction cost is levied based on the amount of data transmission.
An example of a situation where this might occur is where the transmitting device or client station is a wireless communications device such as a cellular telephone or personal digital assistant. Consider further an example where the wireless communications device sends lots of email messages, each one having a signature block consisting of both text and other media, e.g., a photo. The present inventors have appreciated that in this situation, and indeed in other situations, it is preferable to allow the user to have their signature block inserted into their messages, but to have this insertion performed not at the client station (as in the prior art) but rather in a downstream node or entity in the communication path between the sender and the recipient. This disclosure describes how to achieve this result. In the wireless communications device scenario, the benefit of the invention allows for less power consumption at the wireless device (prolonging battery life), less consumption of limited bandwidth between the wireless device and the radio access network, faster processing of the messaging application and other applications on the wireless device, lower transaction costs (since the signature block is not transmitted over the air interface to the radio access network), and still others.